MRS. BOLTON resides in Ohio, and has been a contributor to the Herald of Truth in Cincinnati, to the Home Journal in New York,

and to several other periodicals whose au thors are accustomed to have meaning in their verses.

LINES,

SUGGESTED BY AN ANECDOTE OF PROFESSOR MORSE.*

DIDST thou desire to die and be at rest,
Thou of the noble soul and giant mind?
Hadst thou grown weary in the hopeless quest
Of blessedness that mortals seldom find?
Had care and toil and sorrow all combined
To bring that sickness of the soul that mars
The happiness that God for men designed,
Till thy sad spirit spurned its prison-bars,
And pined to soar away amidst the burning stars?
Perchance an angel sought thee in that hour-
A blessed angel from the world of light,
Teaching submission to Almighty power,
Whose dealings all are equal, just, and right:
Perchance Hope whispered of a future, bright
And glorious in its triumph. Soon it came:

A world, admiring, hailed thee with delight,
And learning joyed to trace thy deathless name
Upon her ponderous tomes in characters of flame.
Thou brightest meteor of a starry age, [wrought
What does the world not owe thee? thou hast
For scientific lore a glowing page:

Thy mighty energy of mind has brought
To man a wondrous agent: it has taught
The viewless lightning in its fight sublime,
To bear upon its wing embodied thought,
Warm from its birthplace to the farthest clime,
Annihilating space and vanquishing e'en time.
Didst thou look down into the shadowy tomb,
And crave the privilege to slumber there,

* In a letter to General Morris, dated Trenton Falls, August 11, Mr. N. P. Willis relates the following curious anecdote: "Among our fellow-passengers up the Mohawk, we had, in two adjoining seats, a very impressive contrast an insane youth, on his way to an asylum, and the mind that has achieved the greatest triumph of intellect in our time. Morse, or the electric telegraph, on an errand connected with the conveyance of thought by lightning. ....In the course of a brief argument on the expediency of some provision for putting an end to a defeated and hopeless existence, Mr. Morse said that, ten years ago, under ill health and discouragement, he would gladly have availed himself of any divine authorization for ter minating a life of which the possessor was weary. The Sermon that lay in this chance remark-the loss of price. less discovery to the world, and the loss of fame and fortune to himself, which would have followed a death thus prematurely self-chosen-is valuable enough, I think, to u-tity the invasion of the sacredness of private conversa. tion which I commit by thus giving it to print. May some one, a weary of the world, read it to his profit."

Unhonored and forgotten ?-thou, on whom
Kind Heaven bestowed endowments rich and rare?
Was life a burden that thou couldst not bear?
A lesson this, to those whose souls have striven
With disappointment, sorrow, and despair,
Until they feed on poison, and are driven
To quench the vital spark that Deity hath given.
And it should teach our restless hearts how dim
And erring is our finite vision here-
Should make us trust, through humble faith, in Him
Who sees alike the distant and the near.
The cloud that seems so sombre, cold, and drear,
May hide a prospect lovely, bright, and clear:
When lightning's flash and winds are wild and high,
No radiant beam of sunlight comes to cheer;
But when the wrecking tempest has gone by,
God sets the blessed bow of promise in the sky

THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH.

I DREAMED that I saw, on the fair brow of heaven
The star-jewelled veil of a midsummer even;

I looked, and, as quick as a meteor's birth,
A beautiful Spirit descended to earth.

Her brow wore a halo of light, and her eye
Was bright as the stars and as blue as the sky;
Her low, silvery voice trembled soft as a spell,
To the innermost chords of the heart, as it fell.
One hand held a banner inscribed with "ACCORD,"
The other, the glorious Word of the Lord:
Then, softly, the beautiful vision did glide
To the palace a rich man had reared in his pride.
Through curtains of crimson the sun's mellow beam
Fell, soft as the tremulous light of a dream,
On all that was gorgeous in nature and art-
On all that could gladden the eye or the heart.
The rich man was clad in fire purple and gold,
The wealth in his coffers might never be told;
The brows of the servants that waited around
Grew bright when he smiled, and grew pale when
he frowned.

Then did that proud nobleman tremble and start, As the bright Spirit whispered these words to his heart:

"If thou wouldst have wealth when life's journey is o'er,

Sell all that tho hast, and divide with the poor."

She stood in the cell, where the death-breathing air
Was rife with the groans of the prisoner's despair,
As sadly he looked, through the long lapse of time,
To days when his soul was unstained by a crime.
She pointed away to his Father above-
She soothed him in accents of pity and love,
And said, as she severed the links of his chain,

Thy sins are forgiven, transgress not again."

She came in her strength, and the gallows that stood
For ages, all reeking and blackened with blood,
Like a lightning-scared fiend, pointing up to the sky,
Feli prostrate to carth, at the glance of her eye.
She spoke! old earth heard, and her pulses were still:
"God's holy commandment forbiddeth to kill."
That spirit of beauty, that spirit of might, [light.
Went forth, till the earth was illumined with her
The strong one relenting, was fain to restore [poor:
The spoil he had wrenched from the hand of the
Injustice, oppression, and wrong, fled away,
Before the pure light of millennial day.

The turbulent billows of faction grew calm;
The lion laid down in the fold with the lamb;
The ploughshare was forged from the sabre and
sword,

And the mighty bowed down to the sway of the Lord.
The heathen with joy cast his ido's away,
And knelt 'neath his own vine and fig tree to pray.
By every kindred, and nation, and tongue,
Glad anthems of praise to Jehovah were sung.

KENTUCKY'S DEAD.*

KENTUCKY, Mother of the brave!
Let solemn prayers be said,

And welcome to an honored grave
Thy loved and gallant dead.

Thy gallant dead-they come, they come!
What will thy greeting be?
The bugle note, the martial drum,

And banners waving free?

No: toll for them the solemn knell,
Let dirges sad be sung,

And be the flag they loved so well
A pall around them flung.
In other days, when freemen bled
In fearful border strife,

The bones of the Kentuckians who died under the tomahawk at the river Raisin, in 1812. were conveyed to the river shore, at Cincinnati, on the 29th of September, 1-48, by an escort of Cincinnati firemen, and placed in charge of the Kentucky committee, to whom their reception was assigned. They were contained in a wooden box, painted black, bearing the inscription:

"KENTUCKY'S GALLANT DEAD. January 18, 1812.-River Raisin, Melngan." The bones of these brave men were found in a common grave, which was accidentally upturned while a street in Monroe, Michigan, was being graded. The fact of the skulls being all cloven with the tomahawk, induced the workmen to make inquiry, and an aged Frenchman, a survivor of the massacre, knew them as the bones of the unfortunate Kentuckians-remembering the spot where they were buried. Information was sent to Kentucky, and that state promptly took means for their renoval. The charge was devolved upon Colonel Brooke, participant in, and survivor of, that unfortunate battle.

When savage tomahawks were red
With unoffending life-
With all the ardor youth imparts,

They sought the battle plain :
Those stalwart forms and noble hearts,

Came never back again.

Oh, they were missed where kindred met
In cottage homes of yore-
Flowers bloomed and died, suns rose and set,
But they returned no more.
Young hopeful hearts in sorrow pined,
Young eyes were wet with tears,
And, fondly mourning, Memory shrined
Their names for weary years.
Theirs was no common battle field,
For savage hearts decreed;
And savage vengeance there revealed
A most inhuman deed.

A grave to rest in was denied

The brave and gallant slain;
And foemen left them where they died,
Upon the battle plain.

No voice to soothe, no hand to bless,
The suffering wounded came;
But they, in all their helplessness,
Were given to the flame.
Where Raisin's sparkling waters glide
Through forest, grove, and glade,
Defending Freedom's soil, they died,
And there their graves were made-
Yes, made beneath the ancient trees,
Deep in the tangled wilds:
Their only requiem was the breeze
Amidst the forest aisles.

The moonbeams came at midnight's hour
And softly trembled there,

And angels made that lonely bower
Their never sleeping care.

And fragrant flowers, of brilliant dyes,
Bloomed o'er the silent sod,

And lifted up their tearful eyes

Like mourners to their God.

The world has changed; for many years
Have come since then and gone,
With joys and woes, and hopes and fear,
And still they slumber on.

The pleasant homes in which they grew
Are now the stranger's care:
The gay, and beautiful, and true,

And loved-they are not there.
The friends who knew their manly worth
Have passed from time away;

The children left beside their hearth
Are growing old and gray.
Another generation bears

Their ashes, sad and slow-
Another generation wears

For them the weeds of wo
Thy gallant dead! oh, hoard thei- dust
Within thy holiest shrine.

It is a proud, a sacred trust

Their deathless fame is thine!

MISS WOODMAN is the authoress of The Casket of Gems, and two or three other small volumes, and she has been for several years a 'eacher in the public schools of Boston, of

which city she is a native. Many of her po ems appeared in the miscellanies edited by her friend Mrs. Edgarton Mayo. There is no published collection of them.

THE ANNUNCIATION.

Luke i. 26-38.

SILENCE o'er ancient Judah! "T was the hush
Of holy eve, and through the balmy air
There came a trembling and melodious gush
Of softest melody, as if the prayer
Of kneeling thousands had prevailed on high,
And angel choirs were bending to reply.
Man heard the sound of music, and arose,
And cast the mantle of despair away,
And said, "Deliverance comes, forget your woes,
There dawns on Judah her triumphant day."
But, with the solemn strain of music, passed
The hopes too flattering and too fair to last.

Not so to one, the humblest of her race-
For to her startled and astonished eye
There came a visitant of matchless grace,
Robed in a garment of celestial dye:
"Fear not, thou highly favored"—thus he sang,
While Heaven's high arches with the echoes rang.
"Fear not, thy God is with thee, and hast poured
The richest of his blessings on thy head;
And thou wilt bear a son, on whom the Lord
The fulness of his grace and power will shed:
His name shall be Emmanuel, Mighty One,
Savior of men, and God's anointed Son."

Oh, who can paint the rushing tides of thought Which swept like lightning through the startled mind

Of that lone worshipper, whose faith was brought
Thus suddenly its utmost verge to find:
It failed not, and the curtain was withdrawn
Which veiled futurity's effulgent dawn.

She rose with brow serene: her eyes forgot
Their dreamy softness, and were upward cast,
Filled with celestial radiance. Earth had not
The power that glorious prophecy to blast:
"Behold the handmaid of the Lord, and teach
The trembling lip to frame submissive speech!"
Again there floated on the ambient air

That thrilling melody, while countiess throngs, Waring their golden censers, heard the prayer, Which mingled with their own triumphant songs

The vision faded in a sea of light,
And left to earth the still and holy night.

WHEN WILT THOU LOVE ME? LOVE me when the spring is here,

With its busy bird and bee; When the air is soft and clear,

And the heart is full of glee; When the leaves and buds are seen Bursting from the naked bough, Dearest, with a faint serene,

Wilt thou love me then as now ?
When the queenly June is dressed

In her robes so fair and bright;
When the earth, most richly blessed,
Sleeps in soft and golden light;
When the sweetest songs are heard
In the forest, on the hill-
When thy soul by these is stirred,

Dearest, wilt thou love me stil?
When the harvest-moon looks out

On the fields of ripened grain; When the merry reapers shout

While they glean the burdened plain When, their labors o'er, they sit Listening to the night-bird's lay, May there o'er thy memory flit

Thoughts of one far, far away! When the winter hunts the bird

From his leafy home and bower; When the bee, no longer heard,

Bides the cold, ungenial hour; When the blossoms rise no more From the garden, field, and glen; When our forest joys are o'er,

Dearest, wilt thou love me then? Love for ever! 'tis the spring Whence our choicest blessings flow! Angel harps its praises sing,

Angel hearts its secrets know. When thy feet are turned away

From the busy haunts of menWhen thy feet in Eden stray, Dearest, wilt thou love me then?

Miss Talley was remarkable for a precocity of intellect and an early development of character. Though of an exceedingly happy temperament, she rarely mingled with other children, but would spend most of her time in reading, in an intense application to study, or in wandering amid the beautiful woods and meadows that surrounded her father's residence. At nine years of age she suddenly and entirely lost her hearing, which had evidently the effect of subduing the natural joyousness of her disposition, and of producing that dreamy and contemplative tone of character which has since distinguished her. It may be said that from this period till she was sixteen her life was passed in the solitude of her chamber, where she seemed to derive from books a constant and ever increasing enjoyment. In consequence of her extreme diffidence it was not until she was in her fifteenth year that the nature and force of her talents were apprehended by her most intimate associates. A manuscript volume of her verses now fell under the observation of her father, who saw in them illustrations of unlooked-for powers, to the cultivation of which he subsequently devoted himself with intelligent and assiduous care while he lived. When she was about seventeen years of age some of her poems appeared in The Southern Literary Messenger, and, yielding to the wishes of her friends, she has since been a

What is most noticeable in the poems of Miss Talley is their rhythmical harmony, considered in connexion with her perfect insensibility to sound, for a period so long that she could not have had before its commencement any ideas of musical expression or poetical art. The only instance in literary history in which so melodious a versification has been attained under similar circumstances is that of James Nack, the deaf and dumb poet of New York, whose writings were several years ago given to the public by Mr. Prosper M. Wetmore. There is not in Mr. Nack's poems, however, any single composition that can be compared with Ennerslie, in grace, or variety of cadences, or in ideal beauty. This poem, without being an imitation, will remind the reader of one of the finest productions of Tennyson.

Miss Talley is remarkable not only for the peculiar interest of her character, but for the variety of her abilities. She is a painter as well as a poet, and some of the productions of her pencil have been praised by the best critics in the arts of design, both for striking and original conception and for skilful execution. Her friends therefore anticipate for her a distinguished position among those women who have cultivated painting, and they find in her pictures the same characteristics that maik her literary compositions.

Young, and gifted with such unusual powers, she rarely mingles in society beyond the select circle of friends by whom she is surrounded. She finds her happiness in the quiet pleasures and affections of home. Her life is essentially that of a poet. Ardent in temperament, yet shrinkingly sensitive, with a fine fancy which is often warmed into imagination, and an instinctive apprehension and love of the various forms of beauty, poetry becomes the expression of her nature, and the compensation for that infirmity by which she is deprived of half the pleasures that minister to a fine intelligence.

ENNERSLIE.

I.

A HOARY tower, grim and high,
All beneath a summer sky,
Where the river ghleth by

Sullenly-sullenly;

Across the wave in slugglish gloom,
Heavy and black the shadows loom,
But the water-lilies brightly bloom
Round about grim Ennerslie.
All upon the bank below
Alders green and willows grow,
That ever sway them to and fro
Mournfully-mournfully;
Never a boat doth pass that way,
Never is heard a carol gay,
Nor doth a weary pilgrim stray
Down by haunted Ennerslie.
Yet in that tower is a room
From whose oaken-fretted dome
Weird faces peer athwart the gloom
Mockingly-mockingly;

And there beside the taper's gleam
That maketh darkness darker seem,
Like one that waketh in a dream,
Sits the lord of Ennerslie:
Sitteth in his carved chair-
From his forehead pale and fair
Falleth down the raven hair

Heavily-heavily;

There is no color on his cheek,
His lip is pale--he doth not speak,
And rarely doth his footstep break

The stillness of grim Ennerslie.
From the casement, mantled o'er
With ivy-boughs and lichens hoar,
The shadows creep along the floor
Stealthily-stealthily;

They glide along, a spectral train,
And rest upon the crimson stain
Where of old a corpse was lain-
Murdered at grim Ennerslie.
In a niche within the wall,
Where the shadows deepest fall,
Like a coffin and a pall,

Gloomily-gloomily,

Sits an owlet, huge and gray,
That there hath sat for many a day,
And like a ghost doth gaze alway
Upon the lord of Ennerslie;
Gazeth with its mystic eyes
Ever in a weird surprise,
Like some demon in disguise,

Ceaselessly ceaselessly;

And close beside that haunted nook,
Bendeth o'er an open book,
With a strange and dreamy look,

The pale young lord of Ennerslie.

With a measured step and slow,
At times he paces to and fro,
Muttering in whispers low,
Fitfully-fitfully;

Or resting in his ancient chair,
Gazing on the vacant air-
Sure some phantom sees he there,
The haunted lord of Ennerslie!
There is a picture on the wall,
A statue on a pedestal-
Standing where the sunbeams fall
Goldenly-goldenly;

And in either form and face

The self-same beauty you may trace-
Imaged with a wondrous grace,

That angel-form at Ennerslie!
Once, 't is said, upon a time,
Ere his manhood's golden prime,
Wandering in a southern clime
Restlessly-restlessly,

There passed him by a lady fair,
With violet eyes and golden hair:
It is her form that gleameth there
That angel-form at Ennerslie
When the stars are in the west,
And the water-lilies rest,
Rocking on the river's breast
Sleepily-sleepily—

When the curfew, far remote,
Blendeth with the night-bird's nose,
Down the river glides a boat

From the shades of Ennerslie.
Glideth on by Ellesmaire,
Where doth dwell a lady fair,
With violet eyes and golden hair,
Lonesomely-lonesomely;

At the window's height alway
She weaves a scarf of colors gay,
And in the distance far away

She seeth haunted Ennerslie.
Sitting in her lonely room,
Ere the twilight's purple gloom,
Weaving at her fairy loom

Wearily wearily,

She heareth music sweet and low:
It is a song she well doth know;
She used to sing it long ago-

It cometh up from Ennerslie.
Back she threw the casement wida
She saw the river onward glide,
The lilies nodding on the tide
Sleepily-sleepily;

She saw a boat with snowy sail
Bearing onward with the gale;
She saw the silken streamer pale-
She saw the lord of Ennerslie!

11.

FADING are the summer leaves-
The fields are rich with golden sheaves
Her silken web the lady weaves

Wearily wearily;

Her check has lost its summer bloom,

Her lovely eyes are full of gloom,

She weaveth at her fairy loom,

And looketh down to Ennerslie.